"The cops who pulled me over typed in the vehicle identification number wrong, so they arrested me for stealing a car," Hartnett, 33, tells BULLETT's Spring issue. "[Director] RobertRodriguez and [then-wife] Elizabeth Avellan came down to bail me out of the Austin county jail in the middle of the night so that I could work the next morning."

Harnett didn't show up for the trial "because it was so ridiculous," and as a result, "they put a strike on my record."

"I'd been doing a TV show [Cracker] in L.A. after six months of being in art school, so I was basically just out of the house. I hadn't yet read the script when I went in for my first meeting -- I'm sure it was available, but I was young and I didn't give a sh-t, and I think Robert Rodriguez loved that. He said to me after I was cast, 'I was looking for the coolest kid in school, and you just didn't seem to care at all.'"